Crunchyroll #107: Daifuku Meets Pumpkin Spice!

Well, it’s that time of year again. Time for crunchy leaves, and sweaters, and, of course, the dreaded PUMPKIN SPICE WAVE of mass hysteria that descends on the average American town at this time each year. I’ll admit, I like the pumpkin spice flavoring in small doses, and I wondered if I could find a way to bring this fall food trend into my anime recipes.

Now, the inspiration for this dish comes from my last trip to Japan. Last spring, I was hanging around Ikebukuro, as one does, when I came across the Hello Kitty store. Being a casual Hello Kitty fan, I decided to quietly peruse the shop’s offerings when I came across adorably packaged boxes of pudding (read: flan) flavored mochi. Intrigued, I purchased them and later that night enjoyed one of the best mochi experiences of my LIFE. As it turned out, mochi filled with pudding flavored GANACHE (Ganache! Who’s ever put that in mochi?) was amazing. I was intrigued!

If you’ve never had ganache before, it is a chocolate cream filling, often used in truffles and on cakes. It’s decadence at its finest- you add cream to chocolate chips and let it melt together. Delicious! Here, I use it as a vehicle for the pumpkin spice flavoring. Combine pumpkin puree with cream, white chocolate, pumpkin pie spice, and a dash of salt, and you’ve got all the makings of a tasty treat.

Now roll that ganache into scraps of tender, fresh mochi? Perfection. Daifuku is traditional filled mochi, often stuffed with bean paste, or strawberries, or both. This pumpkin spice mochi is definitely thinking outside the box, but not too far, I hope. I loved this recipe, and with all the crazy flavor combinations Japanese snacks are known for, I don’t think this one is really too far out there.

To Make Pumpkin Spice Mochi

2. Stir chocolate chips through the cream. If not completely melted, put in microwave for ten seconds. Stir through until creamy, cover with plastic wrap, and set aside in fridge to harden, at least two hours.

3. Pour sugar, shiratamako, and water into a heat resistant bowl. Stir together. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave at 1000 watts for 1 minute. Wet a spatula and stir mixture until unevenly heated spots are heated evenly. Cover with plastic wrap, and microwave for another minute. Stir again and recover. Microwave another thirty seconds. Stir through. At this point it shouldn’t be a matte white anymore, but slightly translucent, in the way that frosted glass is slightly translucent.

4. Turn mochi out onto a potato starch covered surface. Coat rolling pin with potato starch, and roll it out nice and thin. Cut out rounds in the mochi with a circle cutter or an overturned glass.

5. Spoon teaspoon-fuls of hardened ganache into the middle of each circle. Make sure your hands are well corn-starched, and wrap the edges up around the ganache, and pinch together so that the edges meld with each other. Set aside on a plate.

6. Apparently, you can roll out mochi scraps to cut more circles. Squish into a ball and roll back out. I myself did not try this, but I wish I had since we had a lot left over and these pumpkin spice mochi balls are SO GOOD. You will want to do this if you double the ganache recipe, because you’ll have ganache left over.

7. When done, dust with cinnamon. Enjoy day of for best taste! Otherwise store in a cool, airtight space.